Cunningham
ArboristSite Lurker
Clearing acreage in southwest Georgia, USA
My wife inherited several acres in SoWeGA (southwest Georgia, USA). We'd like to clear out about 3 acres (initially) that used to be horse pasture when my wife was younger (there's a barn in all this mess as well). It's currently overgrown with 25+ years of privet, chinaberry, hackberry, cedar, wisteria, greenbrier, etc. We hired one guy that said he could do the job, but when he showed up with a 50 hp John Deere tractor, I knew he'd bitten off more than he could chew. I'm generally a do-it-yourselfer, but have never tackled a job this big, and I'm thinking I just need to pull on my big boy pants, rent the equipment, and get it done. I've spoken to folks at two different national equipment rental places to get advice on what I'd need for the job, and got somewhat conflicting information:
The first person recommended an 18,000 lb. mini-excavator to dig up and knock down the large chinaberries, hackberries, etc. (25 yr old trees 12"-18" diameter trunks in some cases), then get a 79 hp crawler to push up the privet and smaller undergrowth, and then push everything up into a pile to burn (we just had about 100 acres adjacent to this spot of volunteer pine and hardwood clear cut and will be having it prepped and burned for replanting within the next year or two, so all this stuff will be pushed over to the clear cut for burning). The next couple folks agreed with that strategy, but one guy thought that the excavator would be a waste of time and to just get a big enough dozer to push everything down and out of the way all at once and be done with it. However, that particular sales rep, said that I wouldn't be able to rent what I needed without a contractors account with them, and that the biggest piece of equipment I could rent without an account would be a 12,000 - 14,000 lb. mini excavator, which he admitted probably wouldn't get the job done.
So my questions to you folks is: What do I need to rent to get this job done? And, is there any reason why I wouldn't be able to rent the necessary equipment without a contractor's license?
Additionally, although we're starting out with rehabilitating the barn and 3 acre horse pasture, there's nearly 10 more acres surrounding the home farm that needs clearing, not to mention revitalizing woods roads and overgrown drainage ditches, so being able to rent the proper equipment and do it myself, will be the most economical way to tackle this.
Thanks in advance.